


too fondly

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Animal AU, F/M, Fluff, I don’t know how to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 14:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6054612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU in which Solas is an owl and Trevelyan is a cat and they meet at Cole’s Clinic for Injured Animals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	too fondly

**Author's Note:**

> A late night. Too little sleep. A chat session. 
> 
> And thus the most ridiculous of my fics was born.

It is a strange looking cat.

That is Evelyn’s first thought.

The creature looks much like her—a rounded face, large eyes, small mouth. But its nose is hard and pointed, and she cannot see paws or a tail and—

Evelyn wants to sniff it.

She edges closer to the cage, her paws silent on the table. She has ventured in before, to see the kinds of creatures her master nurses back to health. But she has never seen anything like this. She creeps closer, and then the strange cat’s head twists, its unblinking stare fixed on her.

Evelyn goes still, frozen in mid-step. She feels her tail twitch uneasily.

And then the strange cat opens its mouth and _screeches._

Evelyn falls off the table. Hits the linoleum floor on all fours and runs. The noise is terrifyingly loud and painful, and she finds herself rushing along the hallway to escape it.

All right.

Not a cat, then.

The Not-Cat is very loud.

Evelyn hides under the desk four rooms away but she can still hear it. The sound reaches through the walls.

“Kill it,” says Dorian, as he walks by. He is like her—but not entirely like her. A Persian, is what the master calls him. A show cat that escaped its owner and was found scraggly and starving in a ditch. But now he is healthy and strong, and he regards the other animals of the farm with some amount of disgust.

The screeching dies away, only to start up again.

Evelyn winces. “It sounds like it’s dying already.”

“Then we shall put it out of its misery,” declares Dorian.

Evelyn fluffs up. As a short-hair, she is markedly less impressive when she attempts it. When Dorian raises his fur, he looks like a storm cloud with eyes.

“You will not touch it,” she says. “It sounds like it’s in pain. We should try to help it.”

Dorian gives her a look. “And how are we going to do that?”

Evelyn twitches her tail in a silent shrug. And then she’s hit with an idea. She bounds over to the food closet—it is supposed to be shut, but Dorian shoved a piece of cardboard in one of the hinges. She edges it open with a paw and vanishes inside.

“If you’re getting a snack, please snag something for me,” calls Dorian.

Evelyn ignores him. She finds the bag of treats and shakes it open. Several pieces of tuna-flavored crunches scatter across the floor. She takes one between her teeth and trots down the hall.

The screeching continues, but it has lessened in volume. As if the Not-Cat has grown tired.

Evelyn edges into the room, keeping to the walls. This room is meant for all incoming injured animals—it smells too much like medicine and pain and part of her dislikes returning here. She knows how it feels to wake up on that table, a wound through her stomach, punctured by the shake of a coyote’s jaws. “Be calm, young one,” said Cole, his hands gentle on her. “You’re going to be all right.”

She still remembers the fear and the pain, and if she can help another creature here, she will.

She leaps atop the file cabinet and bounds onto the table. The Not-Cat’s screech raises to an ear-splitting pitch and Evelyn winces. She scurries toward the cage, belly low to the ground. Then she throws the cat treat into the cage.

It hits the Not-Cat directly in the face.

The creature goes silent.

They stare at one another for a moment.

Then the creature says, “Excuse me?”

“Oh good,” says Evelyn, relieved. “You’ve stopped making that horrible noise.”

The creature tilts its head at an odd angle. “Release me.”

Evelyn sits up. Now that the creature is talking, it is far less terrifying. “Sorry,” she says. “I can’t.”

A pause. “You mean you are in league with the human,” says the creature icily.

“No,” says Evelyn. “I mean, I can’t. No thumbs.” She holds up a paw. “I can’t open cages. Leliana can sometimes, but Cole has kicked her out of the hospital room. And besides, you shouldn’t be trying to escape. If you’re in this room, you’re hurt.”

The creature fluffs up. “I am not hurt.”

Evelyn blinks at it. At the bandage wrapped around his torso.

A pause. “Perhaps I am a little hurt,” admits the creature. “Tell me, where am I?”

“Cole’s Farm for Injured and Lost Animals,” Evelyn rattles off. “We’ve seen everything here. Cole finds abandoned or injured animals. And then he tries to find homes for them.”

“You are still imprisoned here,” observes the creature.

Evelyn’s ears go flat in anger. “I am not a prisoner, you—you funny-looking bald-cat.”

The creature makes a sound. It takes Evelyn a moment to realize that it just laughed. “I apologize,” it says. “I did not mean to insult you.” The creature inclines its head. “I am Solas, if there are to be introductions. I am an owl.”

“Oh.” Evelyn sits back, disarmed by the owl’s sudden civility. “I’ve never seen anything like you before.”

“My kind do not typically come out during the day,” replies Solas. “It is—unsettling. Too bright.”

And she realizes that their entire conversation, he has been angling himself away from the window. Evelyn glances between the cage and the glass, at the stark sunlight pouring onto the table. She judges the angle and distance, then leaps. She lands unsteadily on the windowsill. Then she looks up at the string hanging from the blinds. She has played with it before, and Cole has always picked her up and gently set her on the ground. So she knows what that string does. She throws herself at it, claws grasping, and one of them hooks into the string. When she falls, she feels the jerk through her whole body, then she hits the table on her side.

A terrible landing for a cat.

But then the blinds are falling into place with a hiss, and she blinks as the room is cast into shadow.

She rises, shakes her head, and glances toward the cage.

Solas is staring at her. “You did not have to do that.”

Something in his tone makes her look away. “It’s what anyone would do.”

“No.” His voice is heavy with sadness. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

Unsettled, Evelyn leaps from the table and onto the floor. As she walks toward the door, Solas calls out. “Thank you. For—for the darkness. And the food.”

Evelyn looks back. “You’re welcome,” she says, and trots away.

* * *

 

Over the next few days, Evelyn learns a few things about Solas.

First, he is a male snowy owl. (Or at least, that is what Cole calls him.)

Second, an owl is a type of bird.

Third, he dislikes tuna.

“How,” she says. “How can you hate tuna-flavored treats?”

Solas looks at her. He seems more settled in the darkness and his cage. He has a wounded wing—the result of a hunting incident. Cole found him “flopping around near a highway.” Or at least, that was how Cole put it. (“I did not flop,” said Solas indignantly. “There was no flopping of any kind.”)

“Fish is… distasteful,” says Solas. He stares at the small pile of tuna treats she has brought him.

“Then what do you like to eat?” she asks.

His eyes gleam and he shifts restlessly within the confines of his cage. “I hunt,” he says. “Mice. Rabbits. Rats.”

Evelyn points her whiskers at him, smiling in the only way she knows how. “I hunt, too,” she says proudly. Then she deflates a little. “Well, I try to hunt. When I first got here, I tried to hunt Varric thinking he was just another rat but then he bit me and Cassandra chased me off. She says she’s the only one who gets to push him around and it’s not like I can argue with someone fifty times my size.”

“Cassandra?” asks Solas. He enjoys learning about this place, she thinks. Part of the reason he was so unsettled was his own ignorance of this place and its inhabitants. The more he learns, the more comfortable he becomes.

“Thoroughbred,” says Evelyn. “Used to be a racehorse. They called her the Seeker and she was in something called the Triple Crown until she cracked a bone. Then Cole took her in.”

“And she will not let you hunt this… Varric?”

“Nope,” says Evelyn. “I mean, I wouldn’t have eaten him. Just… you know. Played with him a bit.”

“I do not know,” admits Solas. “I have never played with my food.”

“It’s kind of fun,” says Evelyn. “They squirm and try to get away, and then I disembowel them. How do you hunt?”

“In the dark.” His feathers rustle softly. “Small animals creep and crawl along the ground and I wait overhead. I can see and hear and taste the night, while they blunder about. And then I glide down and silently snatch them up. I eat them whole.” A pause. “And then I hack some of it back up, afterwards.”

Her ear twitches. “Oh, I get those, too! Hairballs?”

“Close enough.”

* * *

 

On the third day, Evelyn brings him a mouse.

He has food, of course. Cole would never let an animal starve. But he has shown reluctance to eat the pellets given to him, and Evelyn dislikes seeing him in such a state. He is polite and well-spoken, and it has been a long while since she made a new friend.

So she ventures into the barn, finds a mouse, and snags it. It squeaks, still alive, and she carries it into the house.

“You’re going to get in trouble,” calls Dorian when he sees her. “The last time I brought one into the house, Cole made me sleep in a crate for the night.”

Evelyn ignores him. She trots into the hospital room and leaps atop the table. Solas is waking up, roused by the sound of her approach. Anyone else would not have heard her, but his hearing is remarkable. When he sees her, his gaze sharpens.

She cannot speak, not with a rodent between her jaws. So she simply steps up to the cage and thrusts the creature through the bars. The mouse flops onto the cage floor.

“There you are,” she says proudly.

Solas gapes down at the mouse. “It is—alive.”

“Well, you said you liked live food,” replies Evelyn.

A pause. “I—thank you,” he says, after another moment. “You did not have to—”

“If you go into that ‘you didn’t have to’ business again, you can stop,” Evelyn tells him. “I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to. I don’t like seeing you uncomfortable. Now stop talking and eat it.”

The look he gives her is soft. Fond. And then he swallows the mouse whole.

On the fifth day, Cole lets Solas out of his cage. Solas begins screeching the moment Cole’s gloved hands close over his wings. Evelyn knows the human is gentle, but one would think he is torturing Solas.

Evelyn leaps onto the table, ignoring Cole’s quiet entreaties for her to get down. “Hush,” she says.

Solas goes quiet. He gazes at her, unblinking, and she can see the fear in his eyes.

“He won’t hurt you,” says Evelyn. “He’s trying to help. Let him help.”

She can only imagine how this sounds to Cole—a cat meowing repeatedly at an owl. But Solas remains still and silent as Cole checks his wing. “You’ve made friends, haven’t you?” says Cole, smiling as he glances between Evelyn and Solas.

He allows Solas to remain out of his cage for a few minutes. Solas walks around on the table, and he is… well. Remarkably clumsy. His taloned feet seem ill at ease on the table, and he looks nervous.

So she does what any good cat would.

She headbutts him.

He falls over.

“Gentle,” says Cole, picking Solas up and righting him. Solas blinks several times. Evelyn considers and then decides she can do gentle.

She tries grooming him.

She ends up with a mouthful of feathers.

“This not how this usually works,” she says, once she has spat out the last piece of fluff. He looks amused—and vaguely ridiculous with half of his feathers sticking up on one side of his face.

“What are you trying to do?” he asks.

“It’s a cat thing,” she says. “Something we do to comfort one another.”

“And you think I am in need of comforting?” he asks. A flash of annoyance seems to burn in his eyes, then it fades away. “I am fine.”

“I’m sure,” she says tolerantly. She walks around him, tail waving in the air. She leaps atop the windowsill—and perhaps she is showing off. Just a little.

“All right,” he admits. “Perhaps I am uneasy.” His gaze follows her. “I spend most of my time in trees or the air. Being indoors, entrapped and forced to walk on such slick surfaces is new to me. But I suppose some parts are enjoyable.”

“Oh?” she says. “Such as?”

Solas watches her. “The grace with which you move is a pleasing side benefit.”

She does not stumble. Cats do not stumble. But she wobbles just a little. She forces herself to sit down, perched on the edge of the windowsill. “So you’re suggesting I’m graceful?”

He sounds rather smug when he answers. “No, I am declaring it.”

* * *

 

She begins visiting him every night.

He is more comfortable in the darkness. And it does not bother her; she can see well enough, and after napping for most of the afternoon, it is no hardship to listen to his stories until dawn.

Because the stories he tells are entirely worth it.

She has never known a life in the wild. Evelyn was a breeder kitten who was deemed unfit for sale and abandoned. Cole found her when a daring coyote had decided to drag her away—and even living on the farm, she only goes outside to visit the a few friends.

Solas tells her about forest—about trees so tall that even she couldn’t climb to the top, about the animals that lurk within the rivers, the ground, the trees, even the air, about the nights he has spent simply watching the world around him—about moles creeping sightlessly along the forest floor, about sparrows chirping at him in the morning until he screeched to scare them off, about storms that shook the very ground, about the scent of spring and how snowflakes that melted upon his wings, about the small lights in the night sky he called stars.

She doesn’t quite believe that one.

“Tiny little lamps in the night sky,” she says skeptically. “What are they there for?”

“They are not for anything,” he replies, “they simply are.”

“And you can only see them at night?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because the sun is too bright—it drowns the world in light.”

He has a way of speaking that entrances her; she could listen for hours. “They sound pretty.”

“They are,” he says. A hesitation. “I—I wish I could see them again. I suppose I will have to live without.”

She looks up, surprised. “But you won’t be here forever.”

He blinks. “Pardon me?”

“You’re only here until you heal.” She nods at his wing. “Then Cole releases the wild animals and—and we never see them again.” The thought sends a pang through her. But she tries to ignore it. “Then you can look at the stars all you want.”

He looks at her with an expression she can’t quite identify. “Ah. I did not realize.”

* * *

 

He is taken out for exercises. Cole unwraps the wing, checks to see how the injury is healing. And then he carefully extends the wing, ensures Solas has full mobility.

Solas does not make a sound, but he looks aggrieved through the whole process. Evelyn watches from the windowsill. He is healing well and she should be glad. She is glad. She is determined to be glad for him. He does not belong here, not with the likes of the domesticated animals. He does not belong with her.

Just as Cole is placing Solas back in the cage, there is a crash and a yowl. Cole looks up, startled. “Dorian,” he says, with that uncanny way of his. He always seems to know when one of them is in trouble, but Evelyn isn’t sure how. Cole hastily replaces Solas in the cage and rushes out.

He did not latch the cage, Evelyn realizes.

Solas settles back into his usual spot, reaching down to sift through a few of his food pellets.

He has not noticed, she thinks. The cage could be opened with a single push, but he has not noticed.

She could keep it to herself. She could not tell him and he could stay a while longer.

With a sigh, she steps forward, and noses at the cage door. It swings open.

Solas goes still. Evelyn takes a step back, leaving the space between them wide open. “There,” she says. “You can leave, if you want.”

She can see the longing in his eyes; Solas looks from the cage door to the window.

“It is daylight,” he says, after a moment. “I would be at a disadvantage, leaving now.” But he does hop out of the cage and walks toward her. She has curled up on the table. She does not trust herself, so she wraps her tail around her own paws.

“Tell me a story?” she asks. If he is to leave today, she wants one last memory of him. “Something you’ve seen, something wonderful.” He sits beside her, leaning against her back. The weight is a comfort, and some of the tension runs out of her.

She feels the shift of his ruffling feathers as he settles himself. He draws in a breath and does not speak for a few minutes. Then he says, “There was fog. It was as I had flown too high, had been swallowed up in cloud and sunlight. I was trying to get home to sleep—but I was in another owl’s territory and I could not stop. We do have territories, you know. We guard them jealously.”

“You do?” She cannot imagine trying to claim any part of this house.

“Ah, yes. I was hunting the night before, and I lost track of the distance. This owl, his name is Elgar’nan, and I knew he would try to kill me if he found me in his territory. I was nearly home when I smelled something. I flapped down to the forest floor and found a snare. Hunters, I think. There was a dead rabbit and I should have let it be, but I—I was angered. Humans have no need to entrap and kill those like us. It is sport to them. So I thought I would spite these humans. I would deny them their prize. I tried to break the snare—and that is when the hunters returned.”

Evelyn draws in a sharp breath.

“One of them thought it would be good fun to bring down an owl,” says Solas. “The weapon he fired grazed my wing and I tried to fly away, but it was difficult. I could not see and I was dizzy with pain. I fell to a human road and was determined to drag myself home… and that is when your human found me. He brought me here and I was terrified because I was sure he would be like the other humans. I would be killed as a trophy. But instead, I met a creature, compassionate and kind, and that was worth any wound.”

“Cole _is_ nice,” she says.

She feels him curl around her, and she realizes that they are snuggling. The way she and another cat might have wrapped around one another. Not for warmth, but for the simple closeness. 

“I was not speaking of the human,” says Solas quietly. 

The lulling sounds of his breath and the warmth of his body are enough to lull her to sleep.

* * *

 

When she wakes, it is dark.

The spot beside her is cold and the cage door is still open.

Solas is nowhere to be found.

Evelyn leaps onto the windowsill and gazes up at the night sky.

If there are stars, her eyes are not strong enough to see them.

* * *

 

Things go on, after that.

Cole finds the window open and the owl gone and he sighs. Dorian makes a snide comment about being glad he won’t have to smell damp feathers. Evelyn tries to sleep at night and finds she cannot. She keeps going back to the hospital room, looking for someone who is not there.

A week passes, and then another.

She keeps waiting for the loneliness to abate, but it doesn’t. She misses the owl, and no amount of talking to Varric or Dorian or even sitting on Cole’s lap does nothing to help.

Finally, one evening, she waits until Cole goes on his nightly rounds and slips out of the door before it shuts. She trots into the backyard. The forest is some distance away and she has always regarded it with trepidation. Predators lurk within forests and she is aware she is small and furry and despite her claws and teeth, might make an easy meal. But she ignores the instincts to run and hide, ignores the fading sun and lengthening shadows, and she walks into the depths of the forest.

She finds a tree. A tall tree with needles rather than leaves. She flexes her claws, and leaps at the trunk. She has little experience with climbing, but old instincts snap into place. She scurries upward, from branch to branch, away from the forest floor. The higher she goes, the more her stomach soars. There is danger in height, but also safety. And she cannot make herself feel afraid of the night sky. Not anymore.

She climbs and climbs until she breaks free of the canopy, until she gazes up at the sunset. She heaves herself onto one of the thin branches and settles there. The tree sways in the breeze and the smells—all the smells. Spice and fresh earth and other animals. She feels almost giddy, intoxicated by scents she has never experienced.

She remains there, clinging to the top of the tree, until the last threads of sunlight vanish from the sky. Until she can see nothing but an expanse of darkness.

She waits and watches.

Waits some more.

But still—there are no stars.

Her chest feels tight. She looks down, and the gesture is a silent admission of defeat. There are no stars. There is no Solas. There is only a cat clinging to a tall tree, unsure of how she will get down.

And then she hears the beat of wings.

Terror rips through her—she is too exposed, she will be carried away, thrown to the ground. She is prey and—

An owl lands beside her.

“You should not be here,” he says, and she nearly goes slack with relief.

“Solas,” she says. “You scared me.”

“And you scared me,” he replies. “Coming up here at night? Alone? My heart nearly stopped when I realized it was you.”

She glares at him. “Well, I wouldn’t have had to do it alone if you came back,” she snaps. Mortification sweeps through her; she should be glad he is here, free and in the night he loves so dearly. But all she can feel is rejected and lonely.

“Ah, yes,” says Solas. “I am truly sorry about that. I was going to come back sooner, but I had… things to take care of.”

“What things?”

Solas hesitates. “I had an owl to drive off. If I wanted to stay in this territory, I needed to make it mine.”

She looks at him. “You’ve claimed this area?”

“Yes. And let me tell you, Andruil was not happy about it.” But there is a smile in his voice. “I will be free to visit now. As often as I like.”

She shakes her head, confused. “Why would you want to come back?”

“Perhaps because I found something of value at that farmhouse,” he answers. “And I did want to show you the night sky, after all.”

He takes a few steps, until his side is pressed to hers. Familiar and warm.

“I think you were lying about the stars,” she says. “I still can’t see them.”

He shakes and she realizes that he is laughing. “My dear Evelyn,” he says. “That’s because it is cloudy.”

She looks up. “Oh.”

“Oh.” He echoes her, but he sounds affectionate. “How about I tell you a story to pass the time?”

She presses her face to the soft feathers of his neck. And she purrs.


End file.
